rpg morsels for the picking

I’m not a pro at drawing and can live with the multiple flaws that appear in my creations. Other members of my group seem to resent drawing their characters, not because they can’t draw, but because they feel inferior when producing something imperfect. So they’d rather google up some character sketch off the Internet, and use that. Which is a lot better than no character portrait, but I still belive that creating it yourself makes it a lot more personal and “yours”.

People often ask how I got to the point I’m at with my maps and drawings. The answer is almost always “practice”. But I often forget to mention what got me started.

Well, really, who got me started.

While I initially blame my first D&D crew and thus Gygax and Arneson, the reality is that one particular game author changed how I looked at drawing and made me start doing it even though I was horribly uncomfortable with the unskilled quality of my work.

Jonathan Tweet is the man to blame / credit. In 1992 Atlas Games published Over the Edge which was EXACTLY the game I wanted to play at that point in my life. And there was a rule in the game that you HAD TO DRAW YOUR CHARACTER.

It made a HUGE difference.

That connection, even to a crappy illustration, was big. It did engage different parts…

I’ve been drawing a lot on my iPad Pro lately, so I thought it would be a nice change to go back to paper for a bit. Here’s the map I came up with, and I think it turned out well. The top version has a digitally added background (an old paper texture), but the bottom version is a pure vanilla scan from my paper journal.

The Island Seis

The Island Seis is not your typical tourist destination. Rowdy pirates? Check. Dour swamp? Thirsty mosquitoes? Malicious voodoo witches? Check. Check. Check. But then, these nasty factors work in favour of those who hang out here. It’s an unwelcoming pirate haven, slightly, but not too far off from, some very lucrative trade routes. And that suits the inhabitants just fine.

Seis has two ports: Crapola and Port Fyshbite. Both towns are located within a protective lagoon, Crapola to the southwest and Port Fyshbite to the northeast.

Though I gotta say, a quick look at one of my fellow competitors makes me realise I’m not a pro yet. Check out Werkes submission for some eye-searing goodness. That’s a nice piece of design right there.

I just submitted a map to the One Page Dungeon contest. I’ve been a lurker there for several years, but thought it was about time I threw in a contribution. Will post my submitted map here shortly, hang on!

The marsh to the west is very unsafe, full of Skavens worshipping Slaners.

The lake to the east is not safe. There are squid-skulls mutated by the presence of Cthulhu, lurking about.

The railroad tunnel project south-east of town accidentally broke through a wall to an old Nurgle temple. It was quickly sealed off and the tunnel is mostly safe again, if you disregard those workers slowly turning yellow and undead.

South-west of town, up in the mountains, some berserker dwarves are excavating out a old statue of Khorne. All who approach the place also go berserk.

Sixton is a murky town in a dark world. But we were in need of a map for our weekly Shadow of the Demon Lord campaign, so I drew one. I used my new and shiny iPad Pro + Pencil for this project, so if you want the map without the red marks, it’s easy to fix. Let me know and I’ll whip up a new version.

Lately, I’ve been learning to use my new iPad Pro + Pencil + Procreate (drawing app). This has resulted in a few character sketches from our ongoing Shadow of the Demon Lord campaign.

The character below is named Kjutta. He’s an astronomer and student of the occult. Also, he likes to set things alight. And, he doesn’t usually prance about naked. The missing garbs is just a testament to my tendency of beginning a drawing with the bare anatomy, and often the sketch doesn’t make it as far as clothes.